Fly by Night
by stormnml
Summary: Instants, moments, one flickering flame of insight. Series of oneshots inspired by the 25th anniversary.
1. MMPR - Premonitions

Unbeknownst to most, Zordon can see the future.

They are not exactly visions, but more like shadows - mere glimpses of the future world which vanish as quickly as they come. He knows little. His end will come in the midst of a ferocious battle, but not from the strike of an enemy. Instead, he will fall to the sword of one he considers a son.

He also knows that he deserves such a fate. He has known that since he drafted five "teenagers with attitude" into a war older than the universe itself. From the moment he met them, he saw the damage he would deal to each - that he would break them more than Rita Repulsa could ever manage.

Billy, the blue ranger, has always been alone, even before he becomes a ranger. His intelligence has never done him any favors, serving to alienate him from his peers and relatives. Becoming a ranger will only further alienate him from the world he fights to protect. He will learn from Alpha, and as he learns, his knowledge will become less human and more alien in will create masterpieces which could easily win him Nobel Prizes, but the secrecy of rangerhood will prevent him from sharing them. Zordon sees that, in the end, Billy will leave for the stars to save himself from an experiment gone wrong. He will pretend to leave with a heavy heart, but in reality he will leave with relief as he escapes the world which never accepted him in the first place.

Zack, his black ranger, loves fun. His spirit will uplift the others; he will somehow make the darkness seem not quite so dark. He will become the tallest tree within the forest, taking on the lightning for the others - with him at their sides, they will not burn. Yet, in the end, there will be no more wood left to burn. His branches will become ash as the lightning strikes far too many times. His fun will become forced cheer, and the battle will carry on without his light. He will leave for a peace conference as a jaded shadow of his former self. He, like the others, will not look back.

Trini, his capable yellow ranger, is the left hand. Even in her life before she becomes a ranger, she is silent and swift, yet always making ripples in the world. She is the silent mover and shaker, heading school activities, helping others where she can, and generally acting the way a ranger should even as she receives no thanks or praise. She does so much, but to the world, she is invisible. This is why he grants her the Sabertooth power. Yellow is the dependable ranger who does what no one else can with swift and silent force. Much like Zach, Zordon places much on the shoulders of the young teen, but he does so with a heavy heart. The lessons he forces upon her - to stay out of the spotlight, to hand the flashy work off to her contemporaries - will stunt her growth into the influential powerhouse she could have been in another lifetime. He knows she will leave with Zack, but that she will die eight years later in a car accident just as unknown as the day she left.

Kimberly, his pink, will become the team's heart. No matter how far into the violent depths her fellow rangers plunge, she will yank them out with fierce passion and a reminder that they _must_ fight for the right reasons if they are ever to win the war. She will last much longer than the others, but someday, she will run out of strength to pull them back from the brink. Her air will fail and she will drown in the fight. His pink ranger will leave with more than a few scars, both her body and heart crippled with fatigue. She will wander until the final battle calls her home. She will mourn his death, but a small piece of her heart will go black and she will silently rejoice that he can never again touch another teenager the way he did her friends.

He will break his red with nothing more than role. It is quite simple, really. Jason will take the chains of command with silent grace, and he will perform admirably. But, as with all leaders, he will tire. His resolve will fade as he sees his comrades fight non-stop to protect the earth. He will watch silently as Zack loses his dance, Billy falls out of touch with humanity, Trini melts into shadows, and Kimberly's heart cracks under the strain of rangerhood. Through it all, he will never blame Zordon, nor will he blame Rita. The blame will press upon his own shoulders. He will go, just like Zack and Trini, to a peace conference with a heavy burden. His experiences as a ranger will make him a restless wanderer. He will go, but he will always be on the peripheral - just close enough to step in when needed.

Zordon acknowledges that he will break many rangers, but there is only one he will shatter. Tommy will come to him with the seeds of rage already sown within his heart - Rita will make sure of that. It will be her ultimate revenge: to send him someone he _knows_ he will destroy inside and out no matter how hard he tries to avoid it. Zordon will guiltily nurture these seeds into something useful, moulding his white ranger into an angry, bloodthirsty machine. Tommy Oliver will never be able to leave his ranger days behind. He will return, again and again, seeking to fight the evil off for just one more day. He will push his body to its limits with the excuse: "It's the right thing to do." But the truth is, he will never be able to stop fighting.

Zordon knows all these things, but there is nothing he can change. He will meet his death with an empty sadness - the names of the young teenagers he could not save on the tip of his tongue.

* * *

 **Hi there! If you've gotten to the end, congratulations! So this is my first attempt at a PR story, but hey, if you've been in the fandom long enough, you should at least try your hand at it once, right?**

 **Anyhow, this series is mostly headcanons I've got based around PR, and it'll be pretty broad. I figured I should start at the beginning, so the first is MMPR, obviously. Some of these will be dark, others will be funny, and some will just be weird.**

 **Anyhow, I hope you enjoy my wacky brain!**

 **-stormnml**


	2. MMPR - Never Mine

Kat will always hold enmity for Kimberly. It resides deep within her heart, but it is there, slowly eating away at her over the years.

It first reared its ugly head after Kim's Dear John letter. She and Tommy had already felt something, but his dogged loyalty kept them from going too far. However, the moment that letter came, she latched onto him and never let go.

She has to admit, she received a sharp bit of pleasure when Kimberly returned to find that Tommy was hers. That pleasure faded just as quickly as she watched Tommy frantically rush to save his former love. Never mind Jason, never mind the team, it was all _her_. Her gut twisted in the realization that Tommy would never look for her as frantically as he did Kimberly. The entire incident was a painful reminder that no, Tommy was never hers and never could be.

Over the years, they grow older and eventually marry, but as Kat lies down next to her husband, she remembers the way he looked at the other woman so long ago and cries.


	3. MMPR - What Could Have Been

In another life, Zordon would have never found them.

Trini would join Rita to save her family, developing strategies to take down any resistance to the witch's rule. Zack would gather all the lost children he could find and hide them in the rubble of Earnie's In a hunt for supplies with which to feed his young charges, he would vanish into the night and never return. A putty patrol would kill the kids a few days later. Jason would die in the first wave of Rita's invasion saving a scrawny teen he has never even noticed outside of science classes. He would stare right into those baby blue eyes and challenge him to do better even as his heart beat faded away. Kimberly would join the resistance and lead the charge on Rita's castle for the final battle. She would encounter her old friend in a secret lab deep within the dungeons. Only one of them would leave.

And Billy? Billy would be the strongest of them all. He'd be inspired by the martial artist who died saving his life and begin a resistance movement. He would develop technology and strategies that could easily outmaneuver Trini's, and, when all was said and done, he would be the one pulling the trigger for the shot that would kill Rita Repulsa.


	4. MMPR - White

One little known fact is that there was originally only _one_ ranger, not five.

His name was Zor'iln Rerdon, and his suit was white.

He fought off the darkness endlessly, working to keep Rita Repulsa and her forces at bay for just a little bit longer. But one man could not fight forever, and Rita got the drop on him. Her spell sent him hurtling through dimensions until his trusted helper, Alpha, reached him. Zor'iln recognized the danger his absence posed and used a chunk of his power to split the white powers into five - much like a prism separates white light into a rainbow. He drafted five extraordinary humans to fight for him, and they managed to seal Rita away at a heavy cost.

Over the millennia, the humans' whispers simplified his name into Zordon, which he adopted.

He never forgot his old adversary, and his old powers itched for the fight. He found himself constantly looking and waiting for the pin to drop - Rita would return, he was sure of it. Alpha called him a paranoid old coot and told him to stop looking for a fight. But he watched, and he waited. He found himself returning, mentoring, constantly looking for the next fight.

So, when Zordon uses his powers to make Tommy his new _white_ successor, he laughs at the irony.


	5. Turbo - Regrets

Rocky's biggest regret is pulling Justin into the fight.

As Justin comes to him with questions about the job, he cringes. Every time the boy shows up with a new bruise or bandage, his gut rolls with guilt. Rocky finds himself quickly shutting off the television when the rangers come on because he cannot bear to see the young boy fighting. He hates himself for passing the blue powers to Justin more than anything, but he knows that there is nothing he can do about it.

If Justin notices the way Rocky avoids him at reunions or even around town, he never says anything. If he ever sees the way the other rangers look at him with pity and a knowing sadness, he never acknowledges it.

Every year, on the same day, he'll drive down to the liquor store and buy a pack of beers. He'll then make a trip downtown and ring the doorbell of a run down, two story house and hold the pack out when Rocky opens the door.

They will then sit in silence, nursing beers they really don't need and wistfully thinking of what could have beens.

* * *

 **Little note here: This one honestly tears me up inside. Seriously.  
**

 **(These have all been sad... what's wrong with me?)**


	6. Dimensional Theories

There are three different dimensions. Strangely enough, all that separates them are a brother/sister duo and a mission.

Dimension One takes the path that leads to humanity's near destruction. In this timeline, Mason Truman is born to Vivian and Nathan Truman in 1975. His sister, Adriana Truman, is born three years later. In 1993, Adriana, along with five other teenagers, is whisked away to a base in the desert and is made a grey power ranger. She will hold this position until Mason forces her into retirement in 1997 and takes over her role. He will continue his duties up until the final battle in which Zordon dies. Due to their new celebrity status, the Truman siblings will travel to Terra Venture and Adriana will fall in love with a strapping young man named Mike. Adriana will be granted the power of the grey Quasar Saber, but when Mike supposedly dies, she will once again pass the power along to her brother. Mason will continue being the grey ranger for many years, transferring teams and working long past his expiration date. In 2002, Adriana will take one final mission as a favor for Tommy. She will travel to the moon to check on some strange power readings coming from the surface. The last generals of the machine empire will capture her, but not before she sends a distress call to her friends. Tommy will gather the other red rangers from every team in what will be classified as Mission Forever Red. Adriana will die before the rangers arrive. Mason will retire for good and join the Air Force, spearheading numerous projects, including "Alphabet Soup". Dr. K will release the Venjix Virus, and Mason will protect the last pieces of humanity. The RPM rangers will win the day, and Mason, weary from his battling, will wonder where it all went wrong.

Dimension Two begins much like One, but its point of divergence comes in 2002 when Adriana passes over a mission to the moon in favor of stabilizing Mirinoi. Tommy will instead ask the Wild Force grey ranger, Mason, if he would take it. Mason goes on the mission, and, much like Adriana, is captured after sending a distress message. Tommy will initiate Forever Red, and this time, the rangers make it, but Tommy makes the wrong call and Mason dies. Adriana, in a fit of rage, brutally destroys the general who pulled the trigger and continues as a ranger up until she, Tommy, and Jason form Project Hexagon. In a feat of dramatic irony, Adriana makes a wrong call and Kimberly dies on a mission. Tommy snaps, and three years later he takes over Hexagon, declares martial law, ousts Jason, Adriana, and anyone willing to follow them, and takes over the world. Adriana and Jason form Circle, a resistance movement, and fight back. In the end, Tommy gives up at gunpoint - but Adriana pulls the trigger.

Dimension Three has the fortune of neither sibling existing. Mason is never indirectly responsible for destroying the world, and Adriana never sparks a ranger civil war. Instead, the timeline progresses into the one we all know.

Oddly enough, Time Force still happens the same way in every dimension. Alex dies. Wes becomes Time Force Red. Jen and Wes fall in love. Silver Guardians still exist. Those who exist outside time quirk their eyebrows and wonder, but those who belong outside the universe wink conspiratorially.

Time Force is too good to never exist. Let's just leave it at that.

* * *

 **This one's interesting in that most of it is pure headcanon and heavily OC. Nothing is ever explained in-universe about why RPM ever happened in the first place. No places where canon might have diverged, nothing. SO... I made up my own! (Plus a little joke.)**


End file.
